Sore loser America starving Afghans

After 20 years, a couple of trillion bucks, several hundred thousand dead, including 5,000 U.S and allied soldiers and contractors, the U.S. fled Afghanistan in a Taliban route. Our soldiers didn’t fail, just our puppet Afghan government and puppet Afghan military.

Neither served one credible day in governance or military superiority. Both were forced upon the hapless Afghan population in an immoral and senseless war to avenge the 911 attacks. Yet the country most responsible for 911, Saudi Arabia, is hailed as our dependable Middle East ally which gooses our economy with tens of billions in war weapon purchases.

Having devastated the 37 million Afghans for 2 decades, one might surmise America would do its utmost to alleviate the deplorable conditions with which we’ve saddled them. To the contrary, America is extracting revenge on the victorious Taliban by further destroying the pitiful Afghan economy. Besides tossing an anchor around Taliban’s neck with sanctions, we’ve frozen $9 billion in Afghan treasure needed to bring Afghans out of the American made misery.

The UN reports how U.S. seizure of Afghan wealth is contributing to souring inflation, shuttered banks and businesses, creating a humanitarian crisis. Nine million Afghans face starvation in the short term. In the long run Afghanistan remains a failed state due to U.S. warfare and post war vengeance.

A paltry 40 House members, 7% of that body, sent a letter to President Biden imploring him to unfreeze Afghan assets and cease our continued destruction of the Afghan people. While the president has a full plate of domestic policy issues to resolve, it’s a fair bet the starving Afghan people are for him, out of sight, out of mind.

Trib should tell rest of U.S. - Ukraine crisis story

The Trib editorial on the U.S. – Ukraine crisis (December 7), pins its case for Russian aggression against Ukraine on President Putin’s 2018 declaration of Russian-Ukraine solidarity as “one people.” That justifies the argument Putin “stole” Crimea and must not “be allowed to steal the rest of Ukraine.”

But any discussion of the crisis should begin with the February, 2014 coup cheered on; indeed, engineered by America, to align Ukraine with Europe politically and economically rather than Russia. The legitimate Ukraine government of Victor Yanukovych was prepared to align economically with Russia because he was getting a better deal from Russia than the EU. That was unacceptable to Europe and America.

The coup succeeded, realizing the West’s goal of aligning the Ukraine to the Europe. But it unleashed long standing historical tensions between the largely Russian speaking and aligned eastern Ukrainians in Crimea and Donbass, and the western aligned Ukrainians. This led to a devastating civil war still flaring today. The result? Over 15,000 dead with Russian annexation of Crimea and support of Russian aligned Ukrainians in the Donbass. The coup, combined with U.S. signaling NATO membership to Ukraine, including putting ABM’s on Russia’s border, was a provocation too far, setting up the Crimea and Donbass incursions.

Russia has set a ‘red line’ that the West must never grant NATO membership to Ukraine, putting NATO’s combined $1.1 trillion military behemoth on Russia’s doorstep. By contrast Russian military spending is a paltry $68 billion, 1/16th that of NATO. The economic disparity is even starker: Russia’s GDP of $1.6 trillion is 1/25 that of NATO’s $40 trillion.

A hostile NATO aligned Ukraine on Russia’s border seems perfectly OK to the U.S. But 59 years ago JFK risked nuclear war when he demanded Russia remove its missiles, not on our border, but 90 miles away in Cuba, that had requested them to prevent another U.S. backed invasion. Yet, the Trib wants us to believe Russia may be poised to seize the rest of Ukraine in its march to a new Russian empire. That is ‘threat inflation’ that does nothing to acknowledge the reality of valid Russian security concerns.

It also ignores Russia’s immense economic ties to the EU. Russian exports of $337 billion represents 20% of its economy. Half of those exports go to Europe. That underscores the reality that the current crisis represents U.S. imagining that woefully weak Russia, a pittance of the NATO-U.S. colossus, is poised to self-destruct attacking its economic gravy train.

The Trib should do a little more homework before weighing in on

the potentially explosive U.S. – Russia crisis over Ukraine. Its readership deserves a balanced view that doesn’t solely pit White Knight America against Darth Vader Russia.

Sign of the Time

 Spotted this sign at my local Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers:

$15 PER HOUR

Just three words harboring a change in our economy. It’s no longer just Bernie and Liz. It’s the proprietors of fast food and other businesses hiring slave wage service workers forever. It took 4 million of their employees going on work strike to get a few more bucks per hour from the exploiters of those formerly at their mercy.

That $31,200 per year based on $15 bucks an hour won’t allow these hard working, valuable employees to live large in the burbs. But it will provide a few more of life’s necessities and grant them a tad more dignity and respect for their underappreciated efforts.

It’s just a start. But hopefully it will continue to expand their wages and percolate up to that of underpaid workers at levels above them.

Just do it, Jussie

Chicago police receive hundreds, possibly thousands of false police reports yearly. Virtually all receive no publicity and are quickly resolved and forgotten.

Not so with Jussie Smollett's hate crime hoax reported to police early on January 29, 2019. As a hate crime reported by a public figure, Chicago police and other criminal justice resources swung into action. Dozens of detectives spent several thousand hours investigating the alleged crime. Within 3 weeks, Smollett's claim fell apart and he became the subject of a crime itself; lying to police about a phantom crime.

More man-hours and expenses were expended determining justice for Jussie. States Attorney Kim Fox's decision not to prosecute set off a firestorm of public anger that resulted in a Special Prosecutor to undo what smacked of prosecutorial malfeasance. Thousands more hours and dollars, and nearly 3 years resulted in justice; conviction of Smollett on 5 of 6 counts of disorderly conduct for lying to police.

Smollett’s crime was nonviolent, at least in the literal sense. But the damage to our police and criminal justice system in wasted resources was immense. The damage to the public was worse. Likely, some violent crimes were not prevented and some violent criminals were not apprehended due to these lost resources.

As bad a Smollett’s crime was, he should not waste further resources sitting in prison. While probation of some form appears likely, Smollett could begin to redeem himself by two simple moves: admit his guilt and agree to pay the cost of this sorrowful squandering of the public treasure. The first step costs nothing except personal courage and decency. With an estimated net worth of a half million, the second step is affordable.

Come on, Jussie. Be like Nike…Just Do It.

U.S. response to slaughter of 10 in Kabul August 29: Grotesque harm, no foul; unless you tell the truth

As expected, U.S. Defense Chief Lloyd Austin III, ruled out any punishment for personnel involved in the drone attack that killed Afghan aid worker Zemari Ahmadi, 7 kids and 2 other innocent adults in Kabul August 29. The attack came 3 days after a suicide bombing killed 183, including 13 Americans, at the Kabul Airport amidst America’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan.

U.S. military officials at first called the attack ‘righteous’, claiming Ahmadi was a likely ISIS fighter loading up his Toyota with more suicide bombs. His driving around Kabul that day looked suspicious so they simply obliterated him and 9 others from afar. Turns out Ahmadi was doing his job as an aid worker for Nutrition and International, a California based NGO fighting malnutrition, caused in part by America’s senseless 20 year war.

The U.S. cover up of the Ahmadi family slaughter only unraveled due to the intense publicity over the U.S. exit from the Afghan capital. Virtually all of the hundreds, likely thousands of U.S. drone strikes killing innocents occurred in the Afghan countryside, far away from investigative scrutiny. Once the NY Times investigated, revealing the horrendous truth, U.S. officials acknowledged Ahmadi’s innocence, calling the killing of 10 innocents ‘a tragic mistake.’

The subsequent U.S. investigation found no violations of law and no punishment warranted to any involved. But woe onto any serviceperson who dares reveal the truth of America’s endless destruction of innocents in our senseless wars of choice. Air Force intelligence analyst Daniel Hale became distraught his work to identify actionable drone strike targets mostly resulted in 9 of 10 killed being innocent Afghans during 2012 to 2013. He leaked classified documents to the press exposing this horrific record. For his efforts, that should have been applauded and used to end drone warfare, he was sentenced to 45 months in prison.

Hale’s defense deserves scrutiny. “I stole something never mine to take…precious human life. Please your honor, forgive me for taking papers instead of human lives.” But the Masters of War who plan, promote and initiate senseless war killing hundreds of thousands for no reason at all, simply walk away to plan their next venture in depravity.

All hail, Daniel Hale

2022 NDAA not Build Back Better, just Kill Back Better

President Biden is struggling to pass his Build Back Better program to modernize the American economy thru investment in controlling climate change, early education, higher education, affordable health care, housing, family child tax credits and immigration reform. Even with a congressional majority, Biden can’t get his entire Democratic party fully on board in face of unanimous Republican opposition.

But when it came to passing the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) both parties embraced in a lovefest of cooperation to pass it quickly with just 10 dissenting votes. While Congress agonizes over every dollar proposed to modernize American infrastructure and domestic health, it added a whopping $25 billion more to Biden’s request of $753 billion; itself a $21 billion increase of the 2021 NDAA of $732 billion. That’s $778 billion, not a dollar of which will Build Back Better.

The now $46 billion increase (6.3%) comes after a huge expense item, our multi trillion dollar Afghan war was ended. Apparently, the concept of ‘peace dividend’ is not in the Congressional spending tool box. While Afghanistan has been left a failed state by 20 years of U.S. warfare, the president and Congress moved on to new dragons to slay or at least threaten with our gargantuan military budget.

Russia, China and Iran all represent areas of most immediate potential to draw America into new wars. The NDAA includes $300 million for weaponry to Ukraine, $75 million of which is offensive instead of purely defensive. This may embolden Ukraine’s president Zelensky to initiate military action in the Donbass to reclaim this pro Russian breakaway region, instead of implementing the Minsk Accords which would grant autonomy for the region, deflating the threat of war.

Pivoting to Asia, the NDAA authorizes $7.1 billion for Pacific Deterrence Initiatives (PDI), which includes placing threatening long range missiles near our newest bête noire, China.

Tragically missing from the NDAA is Representative Ro Khanna’s amendment that would have ended U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of dead Yemenis and millions facing starvation made no dent on the presidential or congressional conscience. If that carnage helps blunt imagined Iranian influence in the region, let the blood keep flowing.

Maybe ‘Kill Back Better’ is a tad strong. How about simply ‘National Offense Authorization Act’?

Walt Zlotow

Wheaton